Stuff That Award Winning Campaigns Are Made Of

The author of this article is Moneka Khurana, Country Head – Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) India. MMA India gives out SMARTIES Award every year to recognize excellence in mobile advertising.

Digital and mobile are now pretty much synonymous. Number of mobile users as well as the time being spent on handsets is also significantly increasing. What’s more, India is a country with the lowest cost of accessing data on the mobile phone. All these factors have made for a plush opportunity for mobile advertising and we are seeing a deluge of them. But how does a mobile ad cut through the clutter; how does it leave an impression…how does it become the ‘utterly butterly Amul’ of print ads. Here are some suggestions:

Ads need to get the context down pat

Two-thirds of mobile ad campaigns that win awards exhibit one thing in common - they all use multimedia to communicate with their consumer. These campaigns also ensured that the context was correctly understood. Context essentially means the media environment in which the digital ad is placed. Along with context, marketers need to take into consideration the mood and the mindset of the consumer when he or she is interacting with the ad.

While looking for videos, consumers are in a lean forward environment and they are looking for entertainment. On social media, the marketer is competing with the consumer’s friends and family. As a result, they are in a lean back environment. They are looking for distraction to spend time. Therefore, content needs to be tailored according to the platform to reap maximum benefit. Advertising on category relevant sites becomes important for a brand if the objective is to achieve purchase intent. On the other hand, if it is awareness that the brand seeks to achieve then it can be category agnostic. Campaigns that use native content to interact with their consumers and also spoke to the consumer in their vernacular, have seen more success that those who don’t.

Synergy between media and content is a must

Multimedia campaigns work well when they have synergy between various media platforms. If a campaign is made for television, then it can be customized for online as well as social media usage, helping marketers to control marketing spends. Synergy between the media and the content becomes an important factor in setting a winning campaign apart from the others. To put it simply, winning entries usually use the full power of devices.

Consumer engagement and experience rank high

Based on the objective of the ad, there is an exchange that the brand can have with consumers by providing something back to them. It can be achieved by providing tangible value, by being interactive with them and by respecting them. More than half of the winning entries use interactive campaigns and a fair number also use mobile location targeting apps as a means of reaching consumers and providing them relevant experiences.

Measuring the impact of campaigns adds value

Measuring campaigns using metrics beyond clicks is another factor which works well for campaigns. Short-term performance metrics help to help the campaign to continuously reassess their outcome and change gears mid campaign if required.

Incorporate the changing ecosystem but keep the basics

As technology changes, so do lives. With IoT poised to take off, mobile data is going to come in a deluge. Drawing out appropriate learnings from so much data and then tailoring your ads to deliver the right messages to the right people at the right time make the ad experience wholesome. However, while we need technology to put together winning ads, the most memorable ones are those that hit the right chord at an emotional level

Designing a mobile marketing campaign is an opportunity to widen your reach as much as possible by looking beyond your own offerings and taking inventiveness from the ecosystem around you.